Heads or Tails
by Midnight Saki
Summary: "Killers are not born- they are made. And Sasuke was never any different." Modern Supernatural AU. Uchiha Sasuke was born to bring forth Armageddon. Masquerading as a police detective, Partner Haruno Sakura in tow is determined to stop that from happening. Trigger warnings: graphic depictions of death and psychological trauma.
1. Prologue: The Gale

**Trigger warning: Graphic depictions of death and psychological trauma. Not for the faint of heart.**

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_It was so unique to find someone, that in this world, wanted to be alive._

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Hazes of grey clouded the sky above. Abundant hails of water in the shape of bullets plummeted mercilessly at the black ridged roof tiles, ricocheting off the metallic frame atop the house. The raindrops were together a minuscule monsoon that flooded numerous miniature craters in the cemented terrain, as it water-logged through all the Earth it touched.

The wind elevated in a violent gale, gyrating in forlorn spirals, colliding with each other in destructive friction. A slamming door belted against the faded white slabs of the walls. The broken handle creaked, its screws liberated as they came loose, as it dropped to the solid dirt with a silent thud.

A loud grotesque scratching scythed along the metallic titanium of a silver Honda, creating a jagged scar across the abandoned vehicle. The door's slamming ceased, as the car veered, hoisted by the wind, skidding to catch the aged wood.

The front windshield had been shattered. Dozens of glass specks were scattered, as if they had been thrown from a violent impact in all directions. The Honda's bonnet was twisted; mashed into numerous razor sharp edges that stuck out, as if it had been pulverized by the invincible wall. The agitated mistral thrashed against the unharmed trunk of the Honda, threatening to lift it off its black tar-covered tires.

Soil was dispersed from the beige ledge of the building to the lion's share of dirt dumped in a heap, where the dead leaves and rose colored flowers of a once healthy hibiscus plant were now sprawled from a demolished bisque vase. Two airbags were disparaged in the front seats, acting as protectors to cushion the head of any unfortunate victims. The Honda, void of any life, had acquired an unorthodox thrashing from the rapidly vigorous cyclone.

It was almost flamboyant; in the theatrical sense that the vehicle's sustained damage was undeniably irreparable. One of the airbags had subsequently achieved its purpose. With the lock keeping the car door permanently sealed, and the car keys nowhere in sight, the window to the opposite of the driver's side had been rolled down almost fully.

The vehicle was abandoned; but the house was not.

A hushed whimpering ensued from within the house's interior. The landscape around the crash site was nothing but endless green fields, soaked grass being battered in the weather, with no visible animals. Those mammals were elsewhere- somewhere far away, stacked inside barns where they wouldn't be harmed by the storm. Warm enough only to be irritated and terrorized by the wind bashing against the sides of their refuge.

Inside the miniature cottage croft, a small infant could not be so prosperous. Huddled in a corner, underneath a wooden desk that provided additional asylum to the child's restless mind, the boy appeared to be around six or five.

_"Don't argue with me. Run inside."_

He had been conflicted; his instinct adhered his feet to the ground, attempting to stubbornly mold himself there. Yet, it was his futile pleas to stay that made her kind onyx eyes soften. It was her plea that shook him. That made his inexperienced, vulnerable heart sting enough to surrender. Even though he was too young to fully comprehend what she was really saying.

His tiny pale hands were bruised purple, desperately grasping the car mirror, so the wind wouldn't steal him. She had begged him. It was something she had never done. Anguish ruled out his eyes as the perplexity did in hers. His eyes were just a smaller, less rounded version of hers.

_"__Please__, Sasuke_."

Her words haunted his mind. The infant had given in to her wishes and scurried to the front door before the deathtrap their Honda had become could claim him. Before he entered, he looked back at her. As the gale shook the car, she smiled at him, but refused to come inside herself to comfort him. So here he was, trembling beneath an old blanket he found thrown to the side. His ribs stung, bruises certain to form just before the countless quantity of cuts and scratches disappeared. Sasuke almost sprung from his place when a large gust clashed against the wall from outside. His nimble fingers clung to the roots of his short, spiky raven-colored hair. Unknown to him, red was stained on a white jumper he wore, long since dried in.

But it was not his blood.

A putrescent stench permeated the air, wafting from the abhorrent sight. Dark crimson washed in with the pelleting rain. The wind had thrown her forcibly from the driver's seat. The previous eyes that looked so kind had turned cold, dead from the light. Long locks of raven hair cascaded across the dull road, some of it tied in knots caught in clots of red from a head injury.

Her ankle was crooked, the white matter of bone sticking out from where the joints met in her leg. Her skin was decaying; turning rotten and blue as slowly deteriorated from its ivory color. Her leg had been stuck in the car; If she could not get out safely, at least she had made her son do so.

It was his mother's blood.

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Rivulets of the sun's dawn glared him down, effectively blinding him via a chintzy window that was stained from the dust-ridden Earth stuck to it, as though it had been hygienically unkempt from a protracted sense of time before the Honda skidded off road from black ice and the increased winds. For some sleep-induced moments, he forgot.

His pale hands, too small and dainty for a man, regretfully strained himself to escape the warming comforts of the battered and worn blanket he had just scarcely been restful in. Ankles weak and shaking, he bravely managed to steady himself enough to stand, ducking beneath the wood of his additional shelter. The room which had provided him its asylum without his pleading was nearly bare, void of any furniture beyond the rickety desk he had dwelled beneath.

It had been evening yesterday when he had shot the developing muscles in his legs to scamper inside, before the cyclone could fiercely upsurge to batter him like the devastated metal of the car such weather had razed. Now, however, the air was still. Sasuke could only but hear the thudding of his own pulse. And just as sudden, he already yearned to flee back into his corner beneath the thin material of a third-class duvet, to steepen there and remain a part the wall. Somewhere into the night, after hours of convulsing into himself and shivering, he had cried out for her.

That was when he remembered. It baffled the child to comprehend the intuitive motion that urged him to head outside, to throw his lillyputian-sized self back into the Frey of the possible dangers lurking outside. It dawned on him that he was alone. No one could protect him. No one else was around. Significantly, his strength was microscopic to a gale, as he had learned. Gravity couldn't always protect him either.

Narrow, gaunt veins shook in his hand. He also direly yearned to know. He couldn't be alone. Not when she had only ushered him inside yesterday. Perhaps she preferred the confines of the vehicle to protect her. The little Uchiha had always teased his Mother's silliness. She was strange. Closer to nature than the households that protected her, always. His father, on many bounteous occasions, had rolled back his eyes when speaking of her extreme protectiveness. That must have been why. Why she would usher him on inside, onyx pupils uncomprehending to his own, holding a smile that never reached those eyes of joy and kindness.

He knew, though. He didn't know what he knew, couldn't understand it, couldn't let it not baffle his vulnerable pitting stomach. He denied it. But, somehow, he knew it. Just that feeling. The one that had lurked since he last saw the giddy mother that conceived and loved her son. Her silliness. He felt empty, something numbing through his chest, though it hurt like a hardening nail pinning him to the cottage croft.

Tears welted at his eyes, a draft of frigid and iced goosebumps aching the bare visible hairs on his neck to stand- algid and horrified. The urge to succumb to his fear was very real, just to ease back into his corner and do nothing. But he had to do something.

He had to know.

His sneakers skimped across stained carpet, brushing the rim of black with the soles of his shoes. He wasn't walking; everything held him back. His knees were flaccid to push toward the ground, tempted to drop toward spindly weakening ankles and descend with gravity to the floor.

Gravity- his only friend, it seemed, as of the moment. Raven locks spun at the front, stunned by little more than a breeze, spooked. A breeze that could transform into something more monstrous, more robust. He had opened the door.

The stench was unforgiving. The buzzed wriggling of something small- dozens of creatures feasting. And, on that day, his eyes grew wide. On that day, Uchiha Sasuke's innocence was no more. His heart tainted, his eyes scorned. Silly mother, he had merely thought before he had stepped out. She'll be fine. He dropped to his knees, succumbing the fearful adrenaline he had been determined to give in to. And then, his flaccid knees dropped to the ground.

His temptation was absolute- succeeding to break the fear in his spindling ankles. For Gravity, his only friend, let the weakness soar limp throughout his entire body. Not caring of the cuts he gained when his chin hit rock bottom concrete, when all he could focus on was red.

_"__Please__, Sasuke."_

The earthed stains on the window were not the dark stains on the concrete. An unrecognizable corpse was sprawled before him. Recognizable enough. Such things cannot be unseen. He couldn't bring himself to look away from the sight of the maggots that dived for her flesh, eagered and glad to be feeding on the rotting flesh of her limbs and her body.

Larva simply enjoying a meal, wormed up the graying bone that pierced from her ankle. From her dead skin, his haplessness pried at himself mentally. Emotionally, he was scarred. Physically, he could not tremble. His eardrums thundered, his taste grew metallic. Such things cannot be unseen. The sun that hit his back with warmth was cold. Only now, he became aware of his own jumper.

Not his blood. His mother's.

Only then, and only then, could he comprehend. His mother's eyes- kind and onyx. Obsidian and joyful. He would not remember her for the way she wished to be remembered by both her children especially, and everyone else. Fugaku, Itachi... they would. They didn't see what he saw. Could never feel his inevitable helplessness. His eyes forever widened, and his body forever frozen, unable to shed a tear. Because he could not unsee. Shrill, and deep. Pathetic, yet terrifying. It climbed from his toes to his crowned mass of raven hair. Simply, the undeniable. His lips gaped, then swallowed. And when he threw himself back, he threw himself forward. For his limbs to sting, so absolute, they tore apart from his body. For the hurling smash of his mentality to smack his head off the grey, no thought in his mind. For the hollering scream was his, wrenching his own throat to permeate silenced air.

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Some days passed.

He awoke screaming. He always did.

First, his brow would sweat, and he grew paler. Then, he spoke of unintelligible things in his slumber. Of the wind's frantic bashing, rampaging the external walls of his shelter, trying to steal him. Of how he physically remained absent from its touch, yet it taunted him. Consumed him. Terrified him wholly.

A child's mind was fast to break. He was only six.

His brother would hold him, when he would wake believing he was still asleep- _this was too painful to be real_\- and endure the wailing and struggling. He would endure it until their father woke up, scampering and cussing into the room and ushering Itachi away from Sasuke, taking the child into a suffocating hug. Fugaku then would converse one-sidedly, of less sentimental things, until the boy submitted to sleep.

He talked of simplistic things. Like films. Monsters inc, Shrek and Spirited Away were the main three titles Fugaku spoke of. Sasuke's favorites. Speaking of trivial things didn't distract a child long enough, and eventually Fugaku's luck was hapless to the vulnerabilities of multiple nights spent holding Sasuke, rocking him back and forth till he passed out from crying.

It broke Fugaku at first; he had never been particularly good with intimacy. He had never been the sole person to care for anyone. He was bad with words and worse with hugs. Paperwork he once found himself immersed in slowly decreased in his workload the less hours he took and the more he exhausted his heart as the sole provider and carer of two sons. It hurt the more he found himself adapting as he began to fill a mother's role.

Sasuke never remembered in the morning. Specialists called it a survival function in his brain to dissociate reality from memory, and diagnosed him with PTSD. As if he'd do anything to rid himself of the pain. They didn't separate him from people, in an attempt to distract him, encourage him to re-establish himself with familiar surroundings. They attempted trauma therapy, questioned Sasuke and took notes for analysis. At the time, Sasuke appeared stable, and even smiled, as if he hadn't suffered at all. As if he hadn't seen his mother's corpse.

At the time, Itachi was nine, and just barely understood.

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The first instance of withdrawal symptoms came when they lowered her casket into the dirt.

Fugaku thought it best to withhold the funeral, with thoughts of his sons in mind when they each dropped a moon lily each and cast brown soil over her coffin. Mikoto had loved the flower. She said they were associated with birth in Greek lore, as well as purity and innocence.

Itachi and Sasuke gently released the flowers, unaware the flowers could bring her peace. Or perhaps a second chance at life, one in which her skin would wrinkle and her beauty would falter. So she could age old, and witness the lives of her grandchildren, so she could experience everything worthy and wasteful. That a husband would watch his wife wither entirely with a smile, in her sleep, at ninety.

There was the typical sympathies and cliched apologies and blessings. Itachi bared a front to receive them with pride for his mother, hoping she would watch proudly as he held back salty tears. Sasuke withdrew from everyone, disappearing from his father's sights. He didn't cry, not as many had expected him to.

Instead, he was found on the sight of a commotion. A girl screeching at the apex of her lungs, situated with her sat on the ground, her black dress muddied and her bruised lip bleeding. "I v-wis'... pl... playing n-nice!" The child of seven or eight explained, in between her shocked whimpers. She wasn't hurt badly, but whispers spread fast.

Fugaku asked everyone to stay clear of Sasuke while dealing with an enraged mother. "I know you lost your wife, and I sympathize for your family, but that did not give your son the right to punch my little girl!" In truth, Fugaku's ailing was replaced temporarily by gratified frustration as he gave the mother a sincere apology. He had been allowed to see his wife's body, after the wounds had been stitched up and all dirt was removed, but he hadn't been there. He hadn't been a child, with no previous experience of reality's cruelties, cold and malnourished inside an abandoned hut for three days, while Mikoto's body outside, wasting away.

"Dad," Itachi's voice came from behind him, unsure of himself. Fugaku turned to look at his son, a mini version of his beloved wife, red-puffed eyes and a quivering lip, looking to him for comfort.

"Mom is... really dead?"

Itachi knew. He didn't have to ask. He couldn't prevent himself though, when he selfishly tugged at the hem of Fugaku's black ironed shirt, as if he would rip off the fabric. And Fugaku did not answer. He instead just picked up his boy, letting the sniffling muffle into his funeral clothes, to hide his own silent tears from his eldest son, as he searched for the younger.

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Fugaku had spent the day of the funeral with Itachi when they returned home. He sat at their dining table with his eldest, palms on his back, comforting Itachi as he sobbed into Fugaku's funeral clothes. Finally, truly understanding the implications of death. That it was just them now and that was all they got.

Fugaku had prepared for this. He'd once been emotionally null, so he'd read up on different psychology books, mostly on how to deal with grief and how to comfort. He now knew the baser things to say to someone else who was grieving, too. He had maintained eye contact with Itachi, whose eyes betrayed flooding emotion and soggy drying tears, kept a firm gentle hand on his shoulder and told him of the peace Mikoto was at now. Of the all the bad things she wouldn't have to endure ever again._ She would never ever be in pain again._

"And right here, in your heart," Fugaku motioned. "She's always there, right with you, even if you can't see her."

"I can see her."

Itachi and Fugaku turned to the boy who stood at the doorway, distancing himself from their closeness, and appeared to be both sallow and thin. "I always see Kaa-san," Sasuke repeated. Fugaku didn't know if he imagined the crack he heard in Sasuke's voice. The smallest one. The one he wanted to hear. For Sasuke's face betrayed no expression and his tone was monotonous. His tone had been monotonous for the entire journey home.

Fugaku had discovered Sasuke back at St. Rose, the church where Mikoto lay burried, after an hour of trying to find him. All the funeral goers had departed save for one woman who stayed behind to care for Itachi in Fugaku's near absence. She had insisted and he had thanked her gratefully.

Fugaku had discovered Sasuke at Mikoto's grave, lying atop the dirt, staring upwards into something perplexing and heart-wrenching from the way Fugaku saw him in that moment, disrespecting his mother's newly laid resting place. And Fugaku was unsure of what hurt more; the fact that his youngest was lying on top of his wife's grave, or the fact that when he saw that boy with a stranger's vacant eyes, he could have believed that his son was killed that night as well.

He was back looking at this stranger, standing in the doorway, his tiny hand on a mahogany frame, an awful gnawing at Fugaku's chest, with the face of his son.

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_Uchiha Mikoto_  
_Tuesday, 1st June, 1969 - Friday, 18th October, 2002_

August was fast approaching. Soon the Summer would be a bygone, and School would flood with freshmen as the Fall began with a new year. Uchiha Mikoto's broken body now lay lifeless within an ashen gray coffin, entombed deep beneath the Earth in the graveyard of St. Rose Church, as it had been for eleven despondent years. The white marble of her furbished gravestone was smooth, her name delicately inscribed in the center, with three small roses modestly etched into the marble above her written identity.

Positioned with prodigious care upon the soil in front of the stone, was a white moon lily inside a simple but deficient black vase with a blue bow tied around it. She was thirty three when that morbid cyclone killed her. If the raven-haired humanitarian were still here, she would be dissimulating about her archaic senescence, though she would only be forty five.

Mikoto's physical maturity, when she still breathed, was always behind her adept mentality anyway. When she had endured the capricious era of adolescence, she was brazenly mistaken as a decade old lad by any who did not know of her. Though she had been a late bloomer, the rest of the females her age had already mellowed to all the beauty they would ever have.

Abruptly, a devastating mountain had been dropped onto him. Once a boy of six winters, now a near man of seventeen. He was taller; a cold facade blocked whatever thoughts executed through his head. His posture straight and his head held high in masculine pride. Shoulders strong and a muscular chest indicted infrequent and arduous hours at the gym. Sasuke had become an enigmatic and perplexing being in his dark fastidious and intractable ways of life. Even his open-minded ways of expression were lethargic at best.

His ankle sized dress boots were newly polished; from the spiked crown of his untamed hair to the delicate apex of his foot, he was dressed in black attire. Aside from the casual white t-shirt beneath a black leather jacket, his footwear, dungarees and wristwatch were all the same color. The Uchiha himself might as well have been a collage of shaded charcoal that contrasted to his pale ivory complexion.

He veered down onto his knees, clasping in his grip a soft brush, as he carefully rid the pristine marble of newly formed grit, being careful not to scour against the unscathed headstone. By now, one could call him an ingenious expert in cleaning marble. He had long ago marked a permanent mental note in his cerebrum to never use a wire brush, else he would end up damaging the stone face with multiple scratches, which would be religiously disrespectful to his departed mother. He also never used vinegar, or lemon, or literally anything soapy. As the calcium within the marble would dissolve with anything remotely acidic.

It was a quiet Saturday; the hours had rapidly elapsed and not so much as an inaudible pin had dropped around him. Usually, he came on his lonesome after school, or on the morning of a day there were no academic lessons.

Every day, without inadequacy, he had visited since her burial. Even when his family used to go on vacation, he stubbornly never left. The last time they attempted to usher him abroad was on his eleventh birthday, where he narrowed his eyes and blocked their forced smiles through years of suppressed pain and even let him choose the destination. He had declined. And Fugaku had always ended up cancelling.

Some people, most who had known Sasuke all their lives, whether from school or as acquaintances of the rather populous family, commented that the day Uchiha Mikoto's light expelled so did the childish innocence and audacious impishness in the pupils of her once glowing son. That the experience of seeing all that blood would have done the same to them, if they too had seen it.

That he held inside of him all the preserved anger that would one day explode like an indistinguishable masquerade of emotion fueled flames, releasing the child that screamed within to be freed. That he was the only one yet to have an emotional meltdown. That he would be better for it. None of them ever said it to his face, though, perhaps because they dared not to.

"Of course you would be here."

The youngest Uchiha didn't have to turn his head to recognize the voice of his elder brother. Uchiha Itachi had been nine when he became the pillar for a broken family.

A decade and a year later, he was at the start of his prime as a twenty one year old. Itachi was the only one who still attempted to treat him like he was the old Sasuke; like he wasn't impudent or selfish. As if he almost had some decent features to make up for the unlimited amount of flaws he carried within his hapless being.

"She's not coming back, Sasuke."

His brother spoke again when his own silence spoke volumes. His tone was sullen; a brooding gloom rung through his words, agonizing his own feeble heart more so than the words were meant for. Like her, Itachi had been blessed with the same raven locks their mother had. Like her, Itachi held the same intense, scorching warmth inside his obsidian eyes as their mother had.

Sasuke, once upon a time, had all of that too. He still did. Except that his eyes now resembled something much darker: an endless abyss into a world with no color and no recognition behind the word life.

"I know that even better than you do."

It was Sasuke who retorted. His cruel sentence spat virulence on his brother's empathetic tone, filled with nothing more than malevolence. Who was Itachi to understand the hopelessness a mere child had endured when he could do nothing but quiver, distraught from the horrific gale his mother's body lay in?

The same body now lay in a coffin, buried directly beneath their feet, dwindling away to disintegrated skeleton. With naught left to respond with but a disheartened sigh, Itachi glanced down to the younger, foolish brother on his knees. Knowing he wouldn't be able to come to his aid if he kept being shut out.


	2. One: Setting the Scene

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_"and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music" -Friedrich Nietzsche_

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In place of a heart was inured stone and a dull ache.

Sasuke wasn't feeling the slightest bit peckish. He glared down a ceramic plate with two eggs and a strip of bacon shaped to form a smile. It felt as though Itachi were taunting him with the sentiment. Most mornings, without thought to flounder, it was this same boorish dance. Fugaku and Itachi would each rouse early and sit to breakfast prior to their respective laboring days. Sasuke would ready himself for high school and wait for the anticipated jingling of keys, followed with whispered chatter and the soft closing of the front door. When he strode downstairs himself, he regretfully always spared a glance through the opened door to the kitchen. He would always see one isolated white plate left forsaken on the wooden counter-top, showcasing a cold meal that inevitably gathered dust.

Conventionally, Sasuke would evade it and leave whichever prepped meal there was to stew, discounting his brother's best efforts. On this day, he granted the plate a cold stare, one pale hand lingering on his school bag's strap, with a faraway look in his barren expression. There was a scant nausea-induced feeling churning at the pit of his stomach, but he couldn't match a word to describe the emotion he felt. It took some time before a faint recognition registered in his mind's eye that a black-clothed figure gingerly tapped his fingers on cedar.

"I'm worried you're not eating, Sasuke."

The figure's voice drawled in front of him. Itachi, dressed in dark slacks and a hoodie, sat atop a dark grey metallic bar stool, elbows rested leaning on the burnt-stained wooden breakfast bar. He cupped in his hands a faded rustic blue coffee mug, his eyes keenly fixed on the ripples of the steaming black liquid he was drinking. There was a minor tremor in his left hand when he traced a fingertip across imperfect ridges painted round the cup. His black hair was drawn back into a tight topknot bun and when Sasuke's eyes met his brother's brown eyes, it wasn't difficult to discern the visible dark lines beneath them.

"Thought you had class," Sasuke replied coolly, disregarding his first statement.

"Not today," Itachi spoke dryly, a somber look to his expression. "Another one of those teacher strikes."

Sasuke paused for thought; sat behind Itachi was his mother's old record player, placed at the far corner of the room. His eyes caught it and found his head again wandering. From what little remembered, his mother had been an old artistic sort. She'd always insisted that analogue sound had a healing effect on the soul, which was why she snubbed CD players and religiously collected vinyl. She had also held fond adoration for black and white film masterpieces like that of Casablanca or Orochi. Sasuke had inherited her old collection of recorded film when he was a boy. He had, at first, barricaded himself to his room to watch them, acquiring a like more for old satirical comedies like the Producers despite trying to engross himself into his mother's old world. Being the age he was at the time, he had struggled to comprehend most of it till he was older.

It was staggering to see it again; Fugaku had stuffed it away in a box against his youngest son's pleas and hidden it from view a few months after his mother's funeral. Sasuke had been fidgeting with the vinyls one late afternoon and figured out how to work it. Fugaku had cried to himself that same night, when he thought no one was around and that his sons were tucked to sleep. Sasuke'd just turned seven and had perched quietly on the stairs, hugging his knees to his chest, unable to sleep from the images. He had gone to call for his father's comfort, only to hear his quiet sobbing, before he silenced his wish to do so.

"How've you been, Sasuke?" Itachi's voice disturbed his daydreaming, bringing him back to a colder reality.

"The same," he admitted.

There was an unspoken exchange left between them when their eyes finally met in reluctant consideration. "I've got school," the younger spoke to break up the silence and signal his departure. Itachi gave a solemn nod as Sasuke turned and walked out the front door.

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Konoha was an official island city just off the coast of Japan, not far a stretch across the water from Yokohama. The island was spacious and vast, enough to be called a small country in its own right, lush with ample green forests and an abundance of hills and mountain peaks. Considerably removed from the outside world, the city itself spanned 170 odd kilometers and held a population of 500,000. The walk to Konoha Gakuen was neither too brief or long as the outline of the high school came into Sasuke's dotted vision. He soon found himself entering the gates, and then walking its halls.

Konoha Gakuen was a unique high school, in that, despite officially being a part of Japan, the school adhered to the Americanized education system, meaning that the year began in August rather than April. It wasn't quite clear to Sasuke or any of the other students as to the particulars of why this was the case, but Sasuke supposed it had do with the headmistress supposedly having more connections abroad than nationally. This also offered an easy explanation to a quarter of the school's student count being made of up international students.

Just little over a decade ago, Uchiha Mikoto's graphic death was published front page as an exclusive article in Konoha's daily newspaper. Fugaku had been outraged and sought to have the story revealing personal information on the Uchiha family removed. Eventually it was, but by then the seeds had already been sown. People still seemed to recall the motherless traumatized boy pictured in the columns from all those years ago when the name Uchiha Sasuke slipped the tongue.

People, and especially children back then, didn't properly know how to handle or process it. Before the accident, he'd been sociable. Impish, sprightly and typical of a little boy. 'A real talker,' one teacher had referred to him as once. But after, there was little semblance of the smiling child he'd been. Some kids hesitantly accepted this, then outright avoided him. Others endured months of awkward exchanges and treated him as though he were glass, before they too eventually cut contact. Sasuke learnt the hard way that it was easier, and preferable, to keep to his own. Nowadays, he didn't bother with people and they left him to his own devices.

Instead, when his social life began to decline, his schoolwork began to thrive. His younger self developed a quick habit of looking for distractions and school was the most obvious one. He redirected all his energy into his academics and found that soon he had a knack for committing knowledge to memory. He became top among his grade. A few years back he'd been offered the chance to skip ahead, but hadn't on account of never having felt the need.

"What's with the expression, Hinata?" A low female voice broke through the concentration of his thoughts, as he curiously turned his head to see two familiar girls conversing by their lockers. A feisty blonde sporting two pigtails gingerly approached a girl with dyed blue hair whom she'd called Hinata. Sasuke had circumstantially seen the two around, but he'd never made any effort to learn names.

"D-didn't you hear, Temari?" Hinata unerringly squeaked, fidgeting at the hem of her jumper with small palms. "Another girl went missing last night."

"Really?!" The blonde exclaimed in exaggerated dismay. "That's three in this last month now! What exactly are the police doing?! They should-"

Sasuke hastened his walk down the corridor with a hare-footed eagerness not to hear the rest of the tenacious blonde's speech, as inspiring it would likely be. He wasn't usually in the habit of eavesdropping on other's conversations, but the topic had promptly piqued his interest and he'd been well within earshot of their discussion.

"Oh, crap-"

"Wha-?"

_Thud._

A loud gasp reached his ears as he realized something solid bounce off his chest, knocking the breath out his abdomen. As he had turned a corner, Sasuke had scarcely registered the blindly dashing girl colliding into him. A scurry of papers, his eye catching scrawled class notes and an administration form, flew out in pirouetting whirls. As they transcended air, the sheets descended down and landed- so numerous they painted laminate floors white as they scattered. His eyes fell upon the girl who clumsily ran into him, cussing quietly beneath her breath, dropping to her knees to gather her papers. She looked up to make panicked eye contact with him, her eyes green as grass in wild woodland and round as a doe's. His lips motioned to speak, but she precipitously cut him off before he was given the chance.

"Don't apologize! It was my fault!"

"It's fine."

"Sorry to run into you like that. You wouldn't happen to know where-"

_What a fucking annoying entrance_, he thought to himself, the whole morning thus far having irked him. Was he going to keep running situations that forced him into unwanted, awkward social exchanges?

The girl vehemently spoke with exaggerated expression and wide eyes, creating massive flailing gestures with her arms even as she gathered papers. Whilst she rambled, he found himself mirroring her kneeling position as he picked up a few stray sheets on his own. She rambled so fast that he didn't even try to hear all that she was saying because he found himself dizzy, almost bemused, with all her flying limbs.

"-could you show me directions?" She finished with an exasperated sigh.

Sasuke, bewildered by the exchange, quirked an eyebrow at her. "Right. Sorry, that was clumsy of me." She sighed, then brought out her hand out for a handshake as she stood up with all her papers messily in check, folded within her other arm. "I'm Haruno Sakura."

For a moment, like the predictable anti-social individual that he was, he stared at the hand offered to him, before reluctantly shaking hands with the energetic girl stood before him. Sasuke understandably wasn't fond of introductions; offering his name to people was usually enough to alienate himself. Some had even been unabashed enough to question if he was 'that Uchiha Sasuke.' Whenever he confirmed that indeed he was, the conversation either quickly ended, turned sour or was immediately written off.

"And you?" She asked curiously, waiting, with a small smile plastered on a naive expression.

"Uchiha Sasuke," he answered with visible discomfort.

To her credit, if Sakura had any recognition that his name was familiar to her, she didn't let on. Instead, the energetic girl beamed from ear to ear with a smile so stupendously wide she virtually lit up like the Konoha Market lights at Christmas. "So, Would you by any chance know where the administrations office is, Sasuke?"

She asked, batting long eyelashes in an almost playful manner. He found himself considering her appearance; other than the green doe-like eyes that he'd already fixated on, she possessed fair skin though less pale than his own, dyed light pink hair styled in a short tousled bob, thin lips and a heart-shaped jaw. She was of a moderately average height, not considerably less than his own, and had a slender physique.

He figured he'd see her attractive if she talked less. He regarded her a black widow spider spinning a web with each word, aware he was a fly she tempted to draw in and he coolly nodded in response.

"I hope it's not too forward of me to call you on a first name basis," she spoke bashfully. "I just moved from the states and calling people by surname is a lot to get used to," she openly admitted. It would seem strange to her coming from the US that the Japanese would call each other by surname, with first names normally being reserved for close friends and relatives to refer to someone by.

"It's fine," he passively shrugged at her. The Uchiha didn't normally have so much social interaction in the space of the few minutes they'd been... well, she'd been talking, and he had been around. He sped up his pace to find the office, however, as he started longing for an easy exit from the one-sided conversation. The pinkette blissfully continued to monologue, whether she was aware he'd departed the listening train or not. He spared her a glance, and though her lips were moving, the audio had been muted in his mind. "...oh, is this it?"

"Yeah," he responded with veiled relief.

"Oh." She spoke, seemingly disappointed, glancing over an office worker conversing over the phone. "Thank you, Sasuke."

"Your welcome," he politely replied, as he turned round to leave.

"Um, Sasuke... would you maybe want to be friends?" She asked, hopeful.

He internally grimaced at the thought, and spoke truthfully before he left, leaving her standing there dumbfounded. "Not really."

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Awkward social exchanges turned to be the least of his annoyances. He was seated at the back of homeroom, his eyes scrutinizing bleak grey sky outside a window beside him.

"It's that freak," one boy whispered in his friend's ear, ignorant to how perceivable his voice was.

"I didn't know even notice _that kid _was in class with us, and it's been a week," the other guy, with messy spiked blonde hair, replied.

"Probably 'cause he skips school days at a time. The school board lets him do anything he wants."

"Eh?! How's that fair?! I couldn't even go to the toilet through class yesterday. Iruka-sensei made me hold it in!"

"Yeah, bet he thinks he's so entitled."

"Obviously," the two snickered between themselves.

Most students left Sasuke to his devices, however, nothing would stop people talking or whispering behind others backs. Sasuke narrowed his focused glare to the stained glass.

"Inuzuka Kiba and Uzumaki Naruto!" The teacher, Iruka-Sensei, called out the chattering boy's names as he entered through the room with a practiced frown, and a particular glint in his eye Sasuke didn't miss as he glanced over. "Care to enlighten the class? I could hear your laughter travelling down the hallway. The topic in question must be comedy gold."

"Ah, Iruka-sensei..." The blonde of the two, Uzumaki, sheepishly rubbed at the back of his neck, fidgeting at his shirt tag in blatant discomfort. "We were just catching up."

"Of course you were," Iruka said as he folded his arms. "On?"

"The news, sir," Inuzuka spoke up, with a face less guilt-ridden than the blonde. "You know that case with all those missing girls?"

Iruka raised his eyebrows in surprise. "And that is a laughing matter?"

"Course not, Sensei!" Inuzuka immediately defended. "Missing girls is an awful matter, sir. We'd never laugh at something like that. We were talking about how it's so tragic all those girls have gone missing and we voiced a blessing for their families. Naruto got really depressed, and I told a joke to cheer him up."

"Oh, and what was the joke?" Iruka-Sensei humored, having trouble believing his story, with an unimpressed expression.

Inuzuka leaned back in his chair with a wide grin and shrugged. "Just that Naruto shouldn't be so down about when he's never gonna get a girlfriend with those whisker tattoos, anyway."

"Hey!" The blonde yelled loudly. "You know I only did that cause I was dr-" Uzumaki stuttered, catching his tongue as he caught the teacher's eye. "So hyper I might as well have been drunk!"

"Enough, boys." Iruka's raised voice carried with authority, straining frown lines on his temple that made his headache visible. "I'm giving you both lunchtime detention. If I hear either of you discuss a classmate during school hours again, I'll alert both of your mothers to your questionable after school activities or the fact that you would use tragic news as an excuse for inexcusable bullying behavior." Two loud groans followed Iruka's proclamation, but were quickly silenced by their Sensei's intimidating eye. Two blaming eyes wandered over to Sasuke's direction, fuming with rage he knew'd be best to avoid.

Unresponsive to their intent, Sasuke turned his gaze back to look out his window, watching the activity down below.

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Suffice to say, Haruno Sakura was struggling to fit in on her first day.

She'd yet to make a single friend; something which was unusual to her, especially had she been back home in the States, where she was constantly going to parties and maintaining a good social life. When her mum had informed her of her parent's decision to move back to Japan after 15 odd years, on account of her dad receiving a job offer which was too good to refuse, given that they were poor and all that came by way of opportunity was minimum wage back-breaking work her parents were growing too old for, Sakura didn't voice any complaints despite the great temptation she had to in the fall of the moment.

Her parents had sent her to Konoha Gakuen under the pretense that it was an Americanized school. Sakura had been nervous all day, and her mother had insisted she not be. Because international students made up a quarter of the school, the cultures surely wouldn't be so different in such an open-minded environment. Somebody neglected to tell her that most of those international students were Korean or Chinese, and whether she could be considered as such, multiple complications had arisen because Sakura was American Japanese and didn't understand the Asian cultures around her one bit whilst others decided she should.

So far, she felt she'd been tossed through a shredder. She'd been called rude for thanking someone for opening the classroom door for her. A girl had shrieked at her when she asked to speak on a first name basis, and called her shallow and forward as the words were implied to convey the next best thing to a slap on the wrist. One black-haired boy in the morning had seemed fine with her asking to be on a first name basis and he'd provided the best, albeit dull and boring, conversation she'd had yet. The guy had barely spoken at all to her, and seemed ready to ready at the first instance it wasn't impolite to do so. She'd asked for friendship, bluntly she could admit, and he'd reacted like she'd insulted his family's honor.

Everyone she'd conversed with seemed to have sticks shoved so far up their behinds it would hurt if they didn't walk with perfect posture. Internalizing her frustration, she kicked at dried mud under her shoe as she walked the direction of her new house- a tiny flat with one room, two bedrooms and thin wooden walls. It was scarce of furniture and the first time Sakura saw her new bed she had bit her tongue in horror at the thin mattress lacking a bed frame, a traditional Japanese futon, laid out on the ground before her. Sitting to a lowered table with no chairs and using chopsticks had frankly been enough to get used to.

If someone Japanese were the embodiment of the Earth, they'd chastise her walking on the ground, she mused to herself. She lifted her gaze off the ground as she heard the clumsy foot falls of another in front of her. She visibly saw the back of a spiked mess of blonde hair atop a figure wearing the dark green colors of Konoha Gakuen's male uniform. He grunted and cussed under his breath, muttering inaudibly about teachers and _temes _and detention.

"What does teme mean?!" Sakura wondered aloud unintentionally, making the blonde yell out.

"Hey, what are you sneaking up on me like that for?!" He shouted, his voice so raspy it sounded like he had a cough, and spun round to look at her.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I was thinking aloud."

"You were listening in on me?" He asked curiously.

"Ah, I didn't mean to. Sorry," she mused. "I was wondering what the word 'teme' means."

"You're speaking Japanese right now though, lady. How come you don't know what a teme is?" He tilted his head, like a confused pup.

"I grew up in America. We spoke Japanese at home, but I don't know any slang words," she admitted with her eyes downcast, as though she were embarrassed by the admission.

He nodded in understanding, falling back to walk beside her. He paused in thought, his eyebrows creasing dangerously for thought like he struggled to think. "Teme means bastard," he bluntly spoke. "This black-haired kid with a duck-ass hairstyle is in my class. He's a smug Teme." The blonde snorted, as though it were explanation enough.

"Did he do something to you?" She asked, prying for more of an explanation.

The blonde tilted his head at her. "Ehh, no." He admitted, searching for his words. "But he's a real snob. He doesn't have any friends, and he thinks he's better than anyone else."

Sakura raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him. "Maybe the guy's lonely," she pondered thoughtfully, biting her lip. "He could just be really defensive."

"No way," he retorted with no hesitation. "That teme got me and my friend Kiba detention." He shook his head to himself, shaking out with an audible shudder, his visual discomfort thinking of the trivial trauma of something sounding comical.

"Ah, well," Sakura hastened to change the subject. "I never caught your name, actually. I'm Haruno Sakura."

The blonde's eye twitched visibly, and for a moment, the pinkette figured she'd done something else culturally inappropriate. "Gomen, I forget my manners a lot. Mum would kill me if she saw me right now," he groaned outwardly and brought a hand to rub his forehead in embarrassment like he'd been the one to offend her. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, but you can call me Naruto." He almost comically picked himself up rather quickly and grinned at her like a Cheshire cat, offering out a hand to shake.

Surprised, Sakura contently matched his stupendous grin with her own and happily shook his outstretched hand. "You can call me Sakura."

"Nice to meet you, Sakura-chan!"

And like that, she would now tell her mother she'd made one unlikely friend.


	3. 2: The Uchiha's Deal

**Trigger warning: Psychological and minor mentions of self harm. **

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_"Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear." __― Stephen King_

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The Uchiha had left his house earlier that morning, intent on avoiding both his father and his brother despite their concerned efforts.

He was numbed, and couldn't be bothered with their care. He couldn't begin to be bothered with the two of them, either. The latter was a thought that once scared him greatly when he was a few years younger. But as he'd gotten older, as he'd grown emptier, he even stopped caring about that. It was strange he even had the motivation to rouse himself before the crack of dawn and ready himself to leave, quiet as a creeping mouse, before any of his family had even woke up.

Sasuke ironically invested his minimal efforts almost entirely into avoidance behaviors. He was well aware of the unhealthy habit from years of therapy, in particular from the same cognitive behavioral therapy course his father had forced him to attend twice. Fugaku had actually gotten his hopes up the first time, even after the usual string of disappointing events Sasuke led his father and Itachi through likewise. The second time had been more of a punishment, a frustration on Fugaku's part, because Sasuke hadn't deigned to listen to any of the tips.

The past year his father had somewhat given up after hearing the same thing from multiple differing consultants. "You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped," their words taunted Sasuke's head with pierced echoes that scratched at his temples. Rage had fired up in him the last time similar words were exchanged in front of him. They all acted as though he wasn't there, even as they spoke about him whilst he was in the room.

If he passed good graded at school, then his father had no other real reason to talk to him anymore.

But Sasuke paid no heed to Iruka's lesson this day as he'd read the textbook back to front, and found a need for his head to wander to his window outside, separating him from the room, bringing momentary peace. Watching people doting round the car park brought a strange sense of quiet, and eyeing the various happenings stimulated his mind enough to distract him

He counted the passing cars on the main road, and the ones already parked. He first glazed over the brunette mother holding her likely sick child's hand as she helped them in the front seat of a silver four-seater. He took a second to observe a green-coated ant-sized figure sellotaping missing posters to lamp posts. He paused to consider the faraway poster; the writing he couldn't read and the dark brunette's face he couldn't quite see. His eye cursorily brushed over the silver vehicle reversing out a parking spot, skimming over the license plate and the inscribed name of its make-

Honda.

"Class, please turn to page 6-"

_"Please, Sasuke."_

Sweat trickled down his brow, and his gaze fixed. Sweat gathered into his palms, and he desperately tried not to remember as he dug nails into his wrists for the sharpness to stunt him, but it was fruitless to forget.

The loud bashing of the gyrating gale against the outer beige wall, the world thrashing outside. Shaking, trembling blistered cold hands that clung to a ragged blanket. The dark red stain dried on his jumper that he didn't notice for two days. The world that caved in on his small form, hugging his knees in the corner of a cottage croft, as the wind screeched, screaming at him, suffocating him- weighing down and scratching with claws at his chest. Pain intrinsically shot up through his ribs, crushing him. The front door battering and creaking open and shut, continuously slamming till he had weakly gotten up and turned the rusted handle to _click _closed_._

Sasuke struggled to stand, his knees weak, and through blurred vision, felt himself dully thud against a solid wall. The rotten stench of death fumigated his nostrils like poisoned gas used to spray parasites off plants in pest control. It reminded him of the larvae that feasted on decaying ivory flesh, a cold shivering that crawled up his spine.

"-he's hyperventi-"

"-He's panicking, Uzumaki, step aside!"

Those cold, dead eyes boring in his own, marking his trauma. He could still see it, sense it all, so vividly. The horror scenes normally reserved for his nightmares and sleepless nights were playing out in the day now. Her body cast out in storming rain, bone protruding out her broken graying ankle.

_"Dont argue with me."_

He should've argued back. He shouldn't have ran inside. He should've done something more.

**"**Teme, look at me!"

A voice bellowed through his stupor; two hands clung onto his shoulders with vice grip, a determined look in blue eyes forcing him to plant both feet mentally on the ground and his focus to return to his surroundings. Several of his classmates crowded around him, with a fierce-looking Iruka forcibly ushering them back to their seats to quieten them.

As the class once more sat down, whispers carried out across the room and many still glanced in his direction. Iruka sighed, running a stressed hand through his hair, and addressed his student. "Are you alright, Uchiha-san?" Sasuke merely nodded in response, lost in thought. "I think we should send you home. I'll call your father."

Stark numbing realization immediately hit Sasuke's gut.

He was getting worse.

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She fluttered open her eyes and jolted upright with a start, throwing her bed covers off her.

She strained her eyes at the streams of white light fluttering through the slits of her curtains, casting through her window. The pinkette's sleepy mind struggled to comprehend exactly what it was that felt off in that moment, and she scratched at her short messed bobbed locks whilst she tried to figure it out. Usually in the morning, Sakura awoke feeling groggy and cussing to the high heavens.

This day she certainly felt more rested than usual.

"Crap. Crap. No, no, no-"

A panicked glance at her phone shot shudders through her spine, and confirmed her dreaded suspicions. Her lock screen shot up with a white flash at the click of a button, and the digital clock showcasing the time beeped before her eyes a second before she sleepily processed the numbers despite her fighting adrenaline.

10:06am.

_Shit_.

How could she be so tardy on her second day?!

It wasn't as though her parents could have woken her. Her father worked early, training hard for this new job they moved overseas for. And her mother was just particularly odd, and never seemed to be around in the mornings. Sakura was sure those absences were fully purposeful though, likely so she could avoid school runs.

Which, currently, was _great_.

She haphazardly flung herself off her lazy ass with little self regard, at least faster than her brain had time to process to balance itself. Blood shot to her head like brain freeze, and she groaned inwardly at the dehydration rush in her frontal lobes. Despite her dizzy regret, she trod on with surprising persistence she'd have given herself a pat on the back for on another occasion. She threw on her uniform, still an odd concept to grasp with her coming from American public school where blazers and knee high socks weren't a legal requirement, with little care for how tidy or un-ironed it appeared.

Haruno Sakura dove her head under the kitchen tap to guzzle away her parched dry throat. She was sure if she even attempted to act the way she was acting in her hurry in front of her Japanese and Asian peers that she would be immediately blacklisted from their backward Victorian-esque society. Still though, she allowed a small huff of accomplishment to swell in her gut when she had been confronted with the difficulty of that different high school world, and at least managed to make one friend.

It was comical how blunt the blonde she had spoken to the day before was considering the geography and polite culture centered in it. To the horror she'd faced during the school day, the ranting idiot mumbling about anti-social kids and detention had brought a breath of fresh air to the walk home the girl was gratified for. Her face paled when she wondered how harsh her punishment would be for being late as she threw her school bag over her shoulder and hoofed it for her dear life.

Her digital clock struck 10:21am as she panted for breath by the school gate. She'd heard of some Japanese schools that closed off their gates to late students altogether and penalized them. Since she was a first time offender, she fully expected it when a teacher walking through campus found her wandering sent her straight to the principal's office.

Tsunade Senju, the woman with dreams of branching out the school to more international waters, was said to be unwaveringly stern. But that sort of thing was to be expected of a Headmistress.

What Sakura didn't expect was the familiar raven-haired boy she had spoken with the day before. She was slightly irked at the sight of him sat on a seat outside the office when remembering his cold dismissal of her. She couldn't help but stiffle a giggle when a comment Naruto had made entered her mind.

His hair was styled like a duck's ass.

Sasuke's eyes shot up when she failed to hide her laugh, and she silently cursed her luck as well as her lack of composure. He grunted in response and cast his gaze away from her direction, as though to make a statement. It felt as though a visible vein popped on her forehead and she didn't bother to hide her retorting glare. She purposely laced venom in with her next words. "I don't know what impression I gave you yesterday to be greeted so harshly, but if you could stop acting like you've got a stick shoved up that far your ass it'd be greatly appreciated-"

"Shut up," he interjected with a cold undertone.

"If you're going to be a dick, at least look me in the eye." She replied, visibly unimpressed.

A heavy exhale escaped him as his shoulders grew rigid with tension, and a chill entered her chest at the sight of his eyes shot up toward her. His eyes were so heavily narrowed, the tension lines in his forehead and brows so prominent, it looked more as though he were in pain and he hardly registered her presence there at all.

The irk in her expression dropped as guilt replaced it. "Sorry, what's-"

"Annoying," he shot his interruption, and cut her off. He rose from his seat and easily towered over her, appearing much more intimidating than he had the day before. She could hardly blink as she stepped back before a draft brushed passed her and he was gone.

"Uchiha-san, you can't just leave the school premises. Your father-" An unfamiliar figure, presumably a teacher, spoke before an earsplitting slam echoed throughout the mostly empty hallway.

She was left stood dumbfounded, gazing back at the now slammed shut front door of the school. Not by the dramatic manner in which Sasuke had taken his exit, or how he was conveniently placed there in the first place like in the beginning chapters of a dumb romance novel. Sakura wasn't even befuddled as to most of the actions he'd made in their one minute of interacting with one another, though it most definitely pleasant.

No, she was left there stood with uncertainty and even a tinge of shock because of how his eyes had shook her. It wasn't the perceived anger in those dark pupils that any student, including her at first, would have seen first on a shallow level. It was how fast they grew empty, like there was almost nothing there at all.

Apart from pain.

And a mountain load of it.

She was brought back from her shuddering reverie by the figure who had called out to Sasuke before. Light platinum locks pulled into a bun, fair skin and hazel beaming eyes entered her vision in the direction of the hallway to distract her. "I'm Senju Tsunade, your headmistress. If you would please enter my office, Haruno-san."

"Ah, sorry, Miss Senju-" She stammered.

"This is not the US, Haruno-san." The woman lectured her. "Please call me Senju-sensei."

And so it seemed another long day was in store.

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"Eh? What do you want to talk about Teme for, Sakura-chan?!" Naruto loudly exclaimed for all around to hear.

A blush that mirrored her strawberry colored bangs flushed over her freckles cheeks as she covered her ears at the unnecessary volume. Rather than pay attention to the subject matter, students around Naruto and Sakura sat at a lunch table seemed to flinch in disgust more so at his brashness. It even took the pinkette some time to adjust to the colorfulness of Naruto's personality

"Naruto, at least cover your mouth! I don't want to see your half-eaten ramen noodles!" A brunette boy cringed with them, yelling at the unabashed blonde, seated just beside them. The whiskered boy had introduced the brown-haired guy to her as Inuzuka Kiba a few mere moments before. While Sakura had been thankful for the offer to join them at lunch, she was sure she had found herself seated with the strongest personalities in the cafeteria.

It took a lot of testosterone to scream that far across a large room when the recipient of the conversation was a chair across from him.

"She's talking about Teme though, Kiba!" Naruto whined.

Kiba grit his teeth in response at that. It seemed the two shared equal irritation at the simple mention of his name. She regretted bringing up Uchiha Sasuke as she couldn't have predicted the outburst. As exaggerated as it was, Sakura wasn't sure what exactly their deal was with the individual. She'd only brought him up because the pained look in his eyes from earlier had left an impression that annoyed her through some of her classes.

She had to admit that part of it might of had to do with how he rejected her offer of friendship her first day there, but she also felt somewhat guilty. Her reaction earlier had perhaps been childish. She'd let Naruto's butthurt rant about Sasuke affect her opinion of him despite not knowing him.

She needed to be less presumptuous.

She had no idea what Uchiha Sasuke's deal was either, after all.

"I'm guessing you heard about that weird meltdown he had this morning, then." Kiba spoke up, a faraway look in his eye.

She blinked. "He had what?"

Kiba grimaced like it was a painful topic. "Do you really know nothing about the bastard? You've never heard the name Uchiha Sasuke?" He asked, his eyebrows narrowed in disbelief. A quick glance to Naruto stooped Sakura further as the blonde was suddenly quiet and staring into the depths of his ramen broth.

"No, I've not." She frowned. "Why would I have heard his name?"

"It doesn't matter," Naruto spoke with a strange sour note in his voice. "He can't be excused for everything cause he had a bad experience when he was a kid!"

"Keep it down, idiot," Kiba shot daggers.

Naruto looked at Sakura with an unreadable expression in cerulean pupils. "It's not up to us to repeat that bastard's business, anyway. It's better you don't know, Sakura-chan. People try to be nice to the asshole and he looks at you like dirt under his feet. That guys not worth it." Naruto said.

"Were you his friend?" Sakura asked, as understanding crossed her features.

"When we were kids," Naruto shrugged in response. "I could care less, Sakura-chan. That was years ago. And I've got you as a friend now!" He suddenly beamed up, grinning from ear to ear in a true Cheshire cat fashion.

"Yeah," Kiba huffed in bitter agreement. "He was always a bastard, though."

"So were you," Naruto smirked.

"Say that again, baka!" Kiba showed his final form as a hothead.

"So. Were. Youuuu." He wiggled his eyebrows.

"That's it, dead last!"

"Says the guy with period warpaint on his cheeks!"

"Says the ass who got drunk and tattoed whis-"

Sakura droned out their retorts, and heaved a small sigh to herself as she figured it would be regularly like that from then on. There was so little estrogen at the table it was stupendously easy to become a wallflower in the midst of their boyish quips aimed at the other. At some points, she found herself laughing along. At others, she was amazed they were high-schoolers.

Still though, through the noise, she found her head wandering back to one question she wasn't bothering to distract herself with.

What the fork was Uchiha Sasuke's deal?!


End file.
